The Effect of Prefabricated Damage on Compression Behaviour of Stiffened Composite Panels

Abstract

Experimental investigations were conducted on the post-buckling behaviour and the failure behaviour of hat-stiffened composite panels. Two types of panels were tested, including undamaged and pre-damaged configurations. All panels were loaded under unidirectional compressive loading until collapse. The presence of a disbond between skin and stringer weakened the ultimate failure strength evidently but did not affect the overall structural stiffness significantly. The debonding defect affected the buckling response and changed the post-buckling deformation and failure behaviour of stiffened panels. For the pre-damaged type, massive debonding in the interface between skin and stiffener was detected, which led to the reduction of the load capacity of the structure, and a small margin between buckling load and failure load was observed.